Here are a few recipes to get you thinking about what you can do with blackcurrants. Some recipes use only the juice, in which case you can get away with not bothering about pulling the stalks (‘strigs’) off the berries, while others use whole fruit, in which case the strigs need to be removed. The easy way to do this is to freeze the fruit and then roll it around – the strigs become brittle and will fall off the berry.

We’ve never really bothered about taking the ‘tails’ of the fruit for any recipe. This is the remains of the dried up flower.

Mulled blackcurrant juice

Mulled BJ Makes around five 'serves'. But I haven't done the sums on standard alcoholic drinks. I like to keep things fairly simple and not too exotic in terms of ingredient availability, but you could certainly tweak this. I prefer cinnamon sticks because I find...

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Vivienne’s blackcurrant flummery

Blackcurrant flummery ( Serves six. Mum's recipe, again. Anyone would think she was surrounded by blackcurrants.) Ingredients 300g blackcurrants (strigs removed) 6 tblspns sugar 1L milk 20g gelatine 4 tblspns boiling water Method Dissolve gelatine in boiling water....

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Summer pudding

Summer pudding(Unknown origin. Serve with custard and cream.) Ingredients 900g mixed blackcurrants & redcurrants (strigs removed), raspberries, strawberries, stoned cherries ½ cup sugar sliced white bread MethodRemove crusts from bread, line based and sides of...

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Blackcurrant slice

Blackcurrant slice(My Mum modified this recipe by L. Kingston of Abbotsham.) Ingredients 2 cups blackcurrants - strigs removed ½ tsps mixed spice ½ cup sugar water as required 1 tblspn plain flour ½ cup self-raising flour an additional ½...

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Vivienne’s blackcurrant syrup

Blackcurrant syrup(Makes ~1300mL. This is Mum's recipe and follows the traditional approach of using bucketloads of sugar. You can of course reduce the sugar or, if you don't like added sugar in your blackcurrant juice, go and buy some BJ!) Ingredients 1kg...

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Blackcurrant and apple chutney

Blackcurrant and apple chutney(Source unknown. Makes ~1.5L of chutney. Serve with cold roast beef or lamb, corned meats, or grilled steaks, chops or sausages.) Ingredients 500g cooking apples, peeled and diced 250g sultanas 500g onions, chopped 1⅓ cups brown...

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Blackcurrant sauce

Blackcurrant sauce(Serve hot or cold with corned beef or lamb) Ingredients ½ cup water ⅓ cup sugar 1 cup blackcurrants 2 tspns grated orange rind ½ cup orange juice 2 tblspns port 1 tspn mustard powder 1 tblspn arrowroot 1 tblspn lemon juice...

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Vivienne’s blackcurrant tart

(Recipe created by Vivienne Roberts - a.k.a. "Mum" - in her kitchen at Valleyfield. While her official recipe doesn't mention it, I reckon a dollop of cream on top doesn't go astray either.) Makes one shallow 12" (~30cm) tarts, or one deep 9" (~23cm) tart.  ...

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